Arguing that a pool is necessary to “the social core of a community,” the newly-poolless 7000-person Arctic community of Iqaluit is set to borrow an incredible $40 million in a plan to erect a three-storey, waterslide-equipped Aquatic Centre.

But in a town beset by potholed roads, a dearth of sidewalks, an overflowing garbage dump and some of Canada’s worst social indicators, critics are questioning why a $6,000-per-head swimming destination seems to have hit the top of the planning agenda.

“Iqaluit needs a pool but with all of our current problems the $40 million centre is not one of them!” wrote Iqaluit city councilor Kenny Bell in a Wednesday email to the National Post.

Emergency services need a new building and the list goes on!

“Our landfill is past due, our sewage treatment has been a massive failure, our cemetery has been a massive failure, our roads are a massive failure, all our buildings are in disrepair (City Hall carpet is duct taped together), our emergency services need a new building and the list goes on!” he wrote.

In regions with extreme weather conditions and no road link to the south, Northerners are accustomed to seeing exorbitantly expensive building projects.

Iqaluit’s small French-language school cost $4.5 million, a recently-opened K-12 school in Inuvik cost $100 million, and a new Iqaluit airport set to open in 2017 is coming in at $300 million.

But in a rare turn for a Northern project, the Iqaluit Aquatic Centre will be built almost entirely without federal dollars.

Ottawa officially rejected city calls for support in 2011. Undeterred, last October, Iqaluit’s 500 ratepayers voted 57% in favour of borrowing up to $40 million to fund the new facility themselves.

On a per-capita basis, the centre will be more than twice as expensive as the $3,000 per head it took for Metro Vancouver to host the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Only seven years ago Iqaluit ratepayers had voted down a similar plan that would have seen the community’s pool rebuilt for only $12 million. This time around, voter sentiment was likely helped by the fact that, only days before, Iqaluit’s only pool — a 1970s-era facility with a capacity of 35 — had been permanently shut down due to severe cracks in the pool’s basin.

“Iqaluit’s cold, dark months magnify the need for vibrant indoor recreational opportunities,” reads the website for REACH, a pool fundraising committee, adding that a new centre would be a check against the territory’s “suicide, domestic violence, loneliness and poverty.”

At a Monday committee meeting, Iqaluit officials reviewed the opening schematics for the centre. Drawn up by the design firm Stantec Architecture Ltd., the facility is set to include two pools, a fitness centre and two saunas.

“What we’re really doing here is touching the future for the kids of tomorrow,” said mayor John Graham at the meeting, according to the Nunatsiaq News.

“The physical, mental and social well-being of northerners far outweighs any cost that this, or any other building would ever cost,” wrote one commenter below the article.

Part of the exorbitant expense stems from the simply engineering challenge of building a heated pool in Arctic conditions.

Unlike pools in southern Canada, Northern pools have to be equipped with elaborate cooling systems so that the thousands of liters of heated water do not melt the permafrost beneath.

If the systems give way, the building sinks and the pool cracks, prompting a multi-million repair bill — if not a total write-off.

Wayne Guy, a principal with Iqaluit-based Guy Architects Ltd., said that despite northern challenges, the Iqaluit pool is still unusually expensive.

Ten years ago, Mr. Guy’s firm built a similar aquatic centre in Inuvik, NWT for only $8 million. Even when accounting for inflation and higher construction costs, he maintained that the Iqaluit centre could easily be brought in for no more than $25 million.

In a Wednesday email to the National Post, Mayor John Graham said that while $40 million is indeed the maximum price, he hoped it would “come in significantly lower” after the planning phase was wrapped up.

Nevertheless, even after the centre opens its doors in 2014, it will cost $4.5 million per year (about $640 per resident) to cover payroll, interest payments and heating the facility against the Arctic winds.

“We need an aquatic centre in town, but the way they’re trying to do it, it’s not right; it’s going to cost us homeowners a lot of money and I think that’s really unfair,” said resident Louisa Willoughby.